If for some reason you are unable to open the link, Ive pasted the text here: Power From the Streets? A U.S. company wants to replace asphalt roads with solar panels BY LAURA LEIGH DAVIDSON When temperatures are high, walking on hot roadways, parking lots, and other paved surfaces can really burn your tootsies. All of that heat comes from the energy of the sun reacting with the pavement. But what if we could turn that energy into electricity? It may sound like a crazy science dream, but an electrical engineer and his wife may have found a way to do just that. Scott Brusaw has developed a six-sided glass panel that contains solar cells. These devices trap sunlight and convert it into electricity. The panels fit together and can form a flat surface on the ground. Brusaw and his wife, Julie, founded a company called Solar Roadways to further develop the idea and produce these new solar panels. The Brusaws propose using their hexagon-shaped invention to replace the pavement on U.S. roads. According to the Brusaws’ calculations, if we replaced all of the nation’s asphalt with these solar panels, the network would produce more than three times the amount of electricity currently used by the United States in a year. As a bonus, sun-harnessed electricity doesnt produce harmful pollution, so the panels could be a smart choice for the environment. A SOLAR FUTURE? The U.S. government sees some promise in the Solar Roadways project. The Federal Highway Administration granted the Brusaws funding so that they could research and develop a paving system using the glass panels. The Solar Roadways team is about to wrap up the testing phase, during which it built a prototype parking lot from the solar panels. A number of laboratories around the country have tested the panels to see if they can withstand the heavy traffic and rough weather that asphalt pavement endures from year to year. The lab results show that not only do the panels meet the requirements, but they can actually handle more weight than they need to. Roadways and parking lots are not the only surfaces that can be built from the solar panels. They can also be used in playgrounds and other recreation areas. Lighting systems within the panels can mimic any type of hard surface sports court. Users can program the panels to morph into playing areas for tennis, basketball, hockey, and even hopscotch. FREEWAYS AREN’T FREE Now, money must be raised to start manufacturing the panel pavement system. It takes a lot of funds to build technology of this type. The Brusaws have raised more than $1 million from ordinary people who learned about the Solar Roadways project through news and social media and want to turn this idea into reality. One million dollars may seem like a lot of money. However, some experts estimate the Brusaws plan could ultimately cost more than $1 trillion. Could Solar Roadways be the answer to the world’s ever-growing need for electricity? A lot of obstacles stand in the way of re-creating the highway system out of solar panels. But the Brusaws may just be paving a road to the future.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 18:01:01 +0000
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